


Near and Far

by PrussianInAmerica



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, Ficlets, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Quarantine, Self-Isolation, Sleepovers, Video Chat, background docnut, video calls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrussianInAmerica/pseuds/PrussianInAmerica
Summary: Self-isolation is no picnic.WARNING: Covid is a central point in this. Please don't read if this will be upsetting to you.There’s a fair amount of fluff and lighthearted comedy, but the pandemic is happening and features prominently.
Relationships: Dexter Grif/Dick Simmons, Lavernius Tucker/Agent Washington, Michael J. Caboose/Leonard L. Church
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	1. Not-Vacation

**Author's Note:**

> Be aware that this deals in how different characters are coping with covid. **Please don't read if you think it'll be bad for your mental health.** These are trying times for everyone and we have to take care of ourselves. This is how I'm coping, but not everyone copes the same. Don't sacrifice your mental well-being for fic.
> 
> Having said that, I'm trying something different here. No ideas for actual plot, no word count minimum, no plans. I always kick myself for not posting longer chapters, for giving up, for forgetting. So these are going to be short. Maybe some will be longer? But probably not. I just really need to post something right now, and I'm not going to beat myself up more than I already have been about literally everything else going on right now. I have a few things done already, so it's gonna be a big dump to start, after that I don't know how long it'll be between updates. I'll leave it unfinished as long as I feel it needs to be. Maybe it'll never end.
> 
> Sorry, it's early and I haven't slept and I'm all rambly. I think this is longer than the chapter, honestly. I'll stop now.
> 
> **Edit 6/23/20**  
>  In light of recent and ongoing events, I'll be discontinuing this fic. Please read the note at the end of the final chapter or [this](https://ianwritesfics.tumblr.com/post/620027086958100480/image-description-under-cut-if-anyone-has) post for more information.

Isolation wasn’t the same as staying home. It wasn’t the same as telling his friends he’d rather stay in that night than go out to their favorite dive bar, Blood Gulch. It wasn’t the same as having a movie night with Grif. It was so unbelievably… different than he could ever have imagined when he used to have misguided fantasies about this exact situation.

Sure, the first couple weeks had been… nice. Working from home, watching tv with Grif, ordering takeout… It was like a half vacation. He got to do whatever he wanted without the pressure of going into public daily. So yeah, it was fine for a bit.

But it chafed. He wanted to see his friends. He wanted to scream at everyone ignoring the shelter in place orders, he wanted to show them the rising numbers and shake some sense into them. He wanted to forget everything that was happening and just focus on the things inside his apartment. He was scared, he was angry, he was empty.


	2. Frustration

Tucker let loose a frustrated cry from behind his hands before dragging them down his cheeks. Wash listened helplessly from the other side of the webcam.

“At least he’s safe? Right?”

“Yeah, but my stupid ex won’t even let me _see_ my son! The closest I’ve come to another human being in a month is when I talk to the mail carrier through the door, Wash! Who could argue that _I’m_ a danger to Junior?”

“Your ex, apparently.”

“My ex! Of _course_ they choose a fucking _pandemic_ to decide they know what’s best for Junior! Of course it was their week when the stay at home order went into effect! You know after this they’ll be back to the same shit! Showing up late for pick ups, cancelling day plans at the last minute when I have plans!”

“Do you want me to come over?” Wash found himself asking, even though he knew what the answer would be. “It’s not like I’ve had any more contact with the outside world than you have–”

“Dude, no offense, but you know if they find out I had my boyfriend over they’d use it as another excuse not to let me see Junior.” Tucker sighed and slumped onto his desk. “God I wish you could, though. I’m going crazy here. I swear, the minute this is over and I’ve spent a solid week with Junior I’m there. Like, tell Carolina to get out of the house or she’s gonna see some _shit_ , babe.”

Wash laughed. “I can’t wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tucker's ex is nonbinary because I couldn't decide whether to have Tucker be trans or not, so now he's like Schrodinger's trans. It made sense last night. Aside from that, Tucker is a personal trainer and he's been doing what he can online. It's not perfect, and he's probably going to have to work that much harder with his clients when everything is over since he can't physically evaluate and correct stances and shit, but it's better than nothing. He's being a little over-dramatic - he's done video chats with Junior just like he does with Wash and the rest of the gang, but it's not the same.


	3. Safe

“Caboose, we can’t go see everyone, we have to stay home.”

“Yeah, but… Everyone has been staying home and I think it would be good to have a sleepover so we can all talk and be together and be happier.”

Church sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “I know, buddy. I want to see our friends too; we all want to see each other. I’m sorry. We’ll be together soon.”

“When?”

“Soon. As soon as it’s safe we’ll all have a sleepover, I promise.”

“Even Sarge?”

“Yes.”

“And Grif and Simon?”

“And Grif and Simmons, and Wash and Tucker, and Carolina and everyone. We’ll all see each other again, I promise. Really.”

Caboose sighed and pulled Church closer, resting his chin on top of his head. “I just miss them.”

“I know. We all do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want Caboose to be happy, dammit.


	4. Shaky

It was during a meeting that Simmons noticed. His hand shuddered a little on his desk and his vision was getting blurry. _Oh god, not now_. He blinked the tears away, checking the time. He still had way too long in this meeting. He made sure he was muted before he began tapping his fingers across the desk out of camera shot. Anything to keep himself occupied.

The minutes dragged on. He sat through the whole thing, and when it was over he quietly sent his supervisor an email requesting the rest of the afternoon off. She didn’t need to know he was curled up in bed and not over a toilet puking up the lunch that wasn’t agreeing with him.

It probably said a lot about their relationship that when Grif found him an hour later he didn’t say anything about it. He just grabbed Simmons’ laptop, booted up some Battlestar Galactica and let Simmons fold himself into his side. They stayed there for hours – Simmons silent while Grif rambled on about anything that popped into his head.

It was nice.

“Hey Grif?”

“Yeah, Simmons?”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is partially based on real life events, but only in the barest sense and not my own life events.


	5. Illiterate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super happy with this one. Like, I'm happy with the dialogue, don't get me wrong; I'm just never super happy when that's all I've got. But I'm not overthinking it. Maybe I'll add more to it later.

“Your boyfriend is computer illiterate!” Carolina shouted from somewhere off camera, laughing.

Wash turned red incredibly fast and threw something Tucker hoped was small at her. “I am not!”

“Ooh, what’d he do this time? Last week he accidentally muted himself for an hour!”

“He hit reply all!”

“Carolina!”

“What? Come on man, you’re better than that!”

“He’s not!”

“Can we move on from my technological inadequacies? I promise I’ll make more and you can make fun of me then.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright old man.”

“I’m not old!”

“You’re almost a whole different generation, Wash. That’s old.”

“Carolina! Back me up here!”

“You’re old, Wash.”

“You are the worst best friend ever. Of all time.”

“Alright, enough making fun of Wash. I might never get laid again at this rate.”

“Fine, but only because I have to go sit through another meeting.”

“Good luck! Be strong!”

“I hope you get your background stuck on something stupid again!”

“Such rudeness to your supervisor!”


	6. Home on the Web

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's pretty dialogue heavy, too. Fortunately, with nine speaking characters I'm less inclined to worry about it so much. It's also pretty long!
> 
> My heart wasn't made to be able to handle writing dialogue for Donut. He's probably not going to feature much.

“Well, how’s everyone doing?” Church winced at the number of voices talking over each other and turned the volume down. “Alright, alright, we’re all adults! One at a time!” He waited until they all shut up before asking Tucker what had him looking like he was going to wet his pants.

“Fuck off, Church. But really, my ex is bringing Junior over to wait out quarantine this Friday!”

A round of congratulations broke out and he felt the arms around his middle tighten just a little. Tucker had not been silent about his asshole ex keeping his son from him, something that had angered Caboose more than Church would have guessed. It wasn’t like Tucker was his favorite person. Or, at least, he acted like he wasn’t.

“Yeah, I guess they remembered the reason we agreed I have him most of the time or something. Anyway, we’re gonna make pizza and watch movies and stuff. I’m trying to decide if I want to fuck around with a watch party or keep him to myself for a little bit. Would any of you guys be up for something like that?”

“We’d love to, Tucker,” Carolina broke in. “But if you’d rather spend a few days with Junior yourself we’ll understand.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know. How’s work going, Simmons?”

“Eh, just as boring as it always is, except now I can wear pajama pants to meetings.”

“He’s a ‘let’s circle back’ guy. I’ve lost all respect for him.”

“Shut up, Grif. All you do is eat hot pockets and watch tv.”

“Well, fine, I guess you don’t want any more of my hot pockets.”

“You couldn’t _pay_ me to eat those.”

“You can lie all you want to our friends, but I know you’ve been stealing them on your lunch breaks.”

Simmons huffed, dropping the subject. “How is it your hair hasn’t grown at all in the last six weeks, Sarge?”

“Are you insinuating that a man wouldn’t know how to cut his own hair, private?” Several hands made aborted moves to check hair length. “I’ll have you know I’ve been keeping regulation length without the need for outside help since before you were a glimmer in your momma’s eye! Or in Grif’s case, a nightmare.”

“Absolutely, Sarge! It’s very important to keep trim and tidy! Manscaping is no joke! Speaking of which, me and Doc have been hard at work on our shrubs! They’re going to look pretty good when we get through with them, if I’m not jinxing myself.”

There was a large, awkward silence as everyone silently agreed to move on as if Donut had said something a normal person would have.

“Anybody else?”

“An intern told Wash to hold alt and f4 during the team happy hour earlier and he fell for it.”

“Carolina!”

“Dude. Have you like. _Ever_ used the internet? Even Caboose knows that one.”

“What’re you all talkin’ about now?” Sarge was staring at his keyboard with an intensity that could only lead to disaster. Simmons looked like he was about to say something, but he wasn’t fast enough. Everyone laughed as Sarge’s connection suddenly cut out.

“Okay, that’s a lot funnier from this end.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be on the other end of something a three-year-old wouldn’t fall for again real soon. Anyway, I think that’s about everyone–”

“What’s going on with you and Caboose?”

“Oh–”

“We have been watching movies and having pajama parties and watching clouds and dogs that walk by our balcony!”

Church hoped his shitty webcam wasn’t picking up on how red his face was, but he probably wasn’t that lucky. “Yeah, we’ve just been hanging out. Sometimes if I can get him to wear his mask we go for walks.”

“It’s itchy and hard to breathe through!”

Carolina laughed. “That sounds like fun, guys.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot of fun trying to wrangle someone twice my size into a face mask. _Anyway_ , didn’t you have something you wanted to talk about, bud?”

“Oh! Yes!” Caboose pushed Church out of frame for a second in his excitement before tugging him back in. “We should all have a sleepover!”

Church let everyone wrestle internally with who should be the one to crush Caboose’s dreams, while he shamelessly stole the larger man’s body heat. His circulation was crap, but it wasn’t like he could financially justify keeping the thermostat at seventy-five in mid-May. Especially not right now. Finally he took pity on his friends.

“He means after everything’s safe. Unless you guys wanna try doing something like this overnight sometime.”

“That is a great idea, Church! We can all have our favorite snacks and pillows and we can have a fort contest and it would be amazing!”

Well. He hadn’t _planned_ that, but… Maybe it could work.

“Aw, yeah! Junior would love that!”

“I’ll put Wash’s hair in pigtails!”

“More and more I’m regretting moving in with you.”

“I’ll pay top dollar to anyone who can convince Sarge nail polish is a non-negotiable part of sleepovers!”

“You don’t have enough money to pay ‘top dollar’ for anything!”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I mean, yeah–”

“That’s settled then; if anyone can convince Sarge to paint his nails _you’ll_ pay top dollar.”

“Hey–”

“I’ve got the perfect shade for him! I can drop it off right away!”

Yeah, this could work.


	7. Take Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just kind of dumping this one without doing a read-through, so if there are any errors or typos let me know

Grif really thought this was the kind of thing he’d be good at. To be fair, he was for a couple weeks. Got caught up on his shows, took a bunch of naps, hung out with Simmons…

Then he got bored.

Usually he was really good at ignoring the news, but lately it was everywhere. Wasn’t like he had anything else to do, either. It just made him angry and anxious, though. He started blocking news sites. Simmons could keep him up to date.

He still had nothing to do but lay around and think.

Simmons was lucky. He could work from home. His days had a modicum of structure to them still. Grif had been completely off work for more than a month, and he couldn’t even leave the house for more than grocery runs.

Once a week – sometimes twice if they _needed_ something – he went out and got the essentials for their apartment as well as Sarge’s place. Simmons was too panicky around people to do it. Which was just as well, he would probably have an aneurysm if he saw the way they were acting in grocery stores. Seriously, just the amount of people who were wearing masks wrong, and don’t get him started on their inability to follow arrows on the floor.

Grif didn’t think Simmons had even gone as far as the hall outside their front door since the stay at home order was issued. If they hadn’t had the balcony, getting some sunlight onto him would have been impossible. Honestly, a lot of his own energy was going toward making sure Simmons was okay. Maybe that was a good thing. Sure kept his mind off everything else.

Sometimes it was hard to remember what things were like before. Hard to remember going to work, what days off felt like, what going out with friends was like. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes it was all he could do to watch TV and zone out for a few hours. If he didn’t have Simmons… It wasn’t worth thinking about.


	8. Care Package

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, got another one for ya already!
> 
> If you haven't yet, be sure to check out the Near and Far [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65pjsQ9Ot5yZpS2XIBBheF?si=Jmhm5xMsTi-jQ4oGcexfhQ) over on spotify! It'll probably shift and change a lot for a bit while I try to nail down what I'm going for, but right now it's a pretty good "quarantine will end" playlist.

Church still isn’t sure how he ended up so lucky. Of all the people to be stuck with during a pandemic… He got the biggest ray of fucking sunshine in the country.

He wasn’t immune to the stress everyone was feeling, but he knew he was having less bad days than the rest of his friends. It was hard to feel down for too long when Caboose was in the room. He seemed to have a sixth sense for when Church was beginning to slip, and he used it to convince him to make blanket forts or cookies or watch a movie. Or all three, plus more.

“That’s not enough chocolate chips, Church!”

“It’s what the recipe calls for, bud.”

“Well, the recipe is wrong! It needs more!”

“Alright, alright! Stop throwing flour everywhere, we still need to clean all this up later!”

Caboose wasn’t mischievous enough to cover someone in flour on purpose… but Church _was_ covered in flour shortly after he said that. At least he didn’t have anywhere to go.

It was hard to dwell on anxious thoughts even in the middle of the night. Whenever he drifted too far, Caboose would pull him closer. Even if he was asleep. It would be scary if it weren’t so comforting.

He was even trying to take care of everyone else.

“Caboose, I could just go drop all this off at everyone’s houses and it would be way faster.”

“But everyone loves getting mail!”

“Yeah, alright. It might take a while for everyone to get theirs, though.”

“That’s okay, because then it is like a surprise!”

So they sent everyone what was essentially a slumber party in a box. Popcorn, cookies, movies, stuffed animals, silly string… He was already dreading the cleanup after their post-pandemic sleepover. But at least he could think post-pandemic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry. I’m probably not continuing this. There’s a more in depth post on my tumblr under the Near and Far tag, and I’ll try to get more in depth here later. I’m sorry.
> 
> **Edit 6/23/20**  
>  So it's been an eventful month.
> 
> A few weeks ago I made a thread on twitter and a follow up post on [tumblr](https://ianwritesfics.tumblr.com/post/620027086958100480/) about my current feelings on writing Near and Far. For the most part, I stand by it. Like I said in my post, I thought about the decision to stop for days. I let it sit for about a week before I took the plunge, to make sure I felt it was the right one. It is. Maybe I'll write more little quarantine things in other contexts, but I don't think it's right for me to try to put words into Tucker's mouth or thoughts in his head about this situation, and I don't think it's right to pretend it isn't happening.
> 
> This is real life, there are real consequences. I'm doing what I can, I hope you all are too.
> 
> **Black lives matter.**

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm. Not doing great, fam. I've been off work from both my jobs since St. Patrick's Day and I'm just. I haven't felt human regularly for a while. I'm lucky enough that I'm self-isolating with my family, but work has always been a big part of propping up my mental health and it's really hard not doing anything. Usually the winter/spring shift is really good for me and helps get me out of my winter funk, but because I'm not really going anywhere... It's not helping. So I'm dropping further than I have on the reg since I was about 18.
> 
> I've been ignoring it. It's not a great strategy, but since I drop more and go into panic attacks when I think about it... it's better than nothing. This is scary. I have to keep telling myself that things will be better. That this isn't forever and I have people who care about me.
> 
> I wish we didn't have to be going through this. But we are, and the best we can do is try to get through it unscathed. To care for others and ourselves in turn.
> 
> I believe we can make it through.
> 
> Anyway you can follow my breakdown in real time (and sometimes get notified that I’ve posted/updated a story) on my Twitter [@ianwritesfic](https://twitter.com/ianwritesfic) and listen to the playlist I'm working on for this fic [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65pjsQ9Ot5yZpS2XIBBheF?si=EEgwJ4A4QeeDqM--HxSD7A)!


End file.
